


the old lie

by Spatz



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Gen, Hospitals, Recruitment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 02:39:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/973313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spatz/pseuds/Spatz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Your country needs you, Sergeant," the man tells John, standing over his hospital bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the old lie

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to inmyriadbits for the beta, even from her sickbed. ♥
> 
> Title is from [Dulce et Decorum est](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est) by Wilfred Owen.

"Your country needs you, Sergeant," the man tells John, standing over his hospital bed. The electrical burns healed fast -- they were almost invisible to begin with -- but he's still got the broken ribs and shrapnel wounds, not to mention that his muscles spasm unexpectedly. The nurses got a little cranky the last time he tried to walk around.

"I'm flattered by the offer, sir," John says slowly, "But I'm not sure I'm CIA material."

The man taps the file he's holding against the foot of John's bed. "Even if we ignore your service record and the work you did on Operation Red Dawn, your recent capture would have caught our attention. It's not the escape as much as the intel you brought back, even after being interrogated -- we can train you, but that kind of resolve is something we look for in our line of work."

John thinks his escape had been less about his resolve and more about the cold hard fact of being the only one still breathing. They'd shown him pictures of the rest of his unit -- the dead bodies of all his friends -- and he'd known that no one was coming to save him. They'd believed in loyalty, in being a band of brothers. 

In the end, they'd all been alone.

He's silent for too long, and the man makes an impatient little throwaway gesture. "It's up to you, naturally. You can finish your recovery, get back in the fight -- with a new unit, of course." John mentally flinches from the idea. "Or you can help us get ahead of the game, to go after the guys _behind_ the insurgents."

John looks down at his hands, scraped and darkly tanned against the white sheets. He's felt for a while now that all he does is chase down monsters, but they've always seemed to get there too late: the intel was wrong, the brass too slow, the terrain too hostile.

"With your skills, Sergeant, we can stop things like what happened to you -- _before_ they happen again." The man looks at him earnestly.

John spreads his hands flat, pressing them into the sheets, and says, "I'm in."

For once, it would be nice to be there in time.


End file.
